Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Toddler Lockdown

After a rainy morning workout, peanut and I skipped our normal playground routine and headed for a drier, warmer activity - the library. We piled our tote full of new reads for peanut and mommy and headed for home.

After completing the mental scan of what was in our refrigerator versus what was planned for dinner and the fact that it was just rainy and gross out, I decided we'd treat ourselves to a bit of Chick-Fil-A for lunch. As I asked peanut whether he'd prefer nuggets or strips, I realized I was talking to myself. The kid had fallen asleep in his car seat. Perfect. I ordered at the drive thru and, thanks to the lack of common courtesy of the 500 cars that passed by without letting me in even though they were only gaining about 6 inches in forward motion because of traffic, ended up taking the long way home.

Peanut was still dozing soundly when we pulled into the driveway. I grabbed the lunch goods and ran into the house to turn off the alarm, pull off my noisy windbreaker and turn down the bed. I pulled peanut's boots off and coaxed him out of the car seat, shushing and rubbing his back. While putting him into this bed, he murmured, "I just want to sleep," and I quietly backed out of his room thinking I might get lunch and about an hour of peaceful quiet.

No such luck. He quickly bounded down the hall announcing "I'm AWAKE!" But we enjoyed a lovely lunch (only my kid likes the carrot raisin salad MORE than the nuggets and fries) and spent some quiet time snuggling on the sofa watching a video. Finally, he remembered that we had gone to the library and wanted the books. Of course they had not made it in from the car in my haste to perhaps get a nap out of the child.

I grabbed my keys and headed out to the car to get the books, grab the mail and retrieve the trash can from the curb. As I turned the knob to come back in the house a total of 45 seconds later, I realized he'd locked me out. Peanut had turned the dead bolt behind me.

I panicked. I started knocking on the door yelling at encouraging peanut to unlock the door for mommy. And then, under the mail and library tote, I felt my keys in my hand. Oops...quickly followed by...WHEW!

The good thing is that he actually did unlock the door for me before I used my keys. The bad thing is did he remember the books were in the car and simply use it as a ploy to kick me out of the house? Nah. He couldn't be that sneaky.